Perks of Being More Popular Than Jesus
by Lucretia Debrev
Summary: Flashback to when Sam got her first kiss, and was bullied for the first time in high school.


When she was seven, one of her dad's co workers came over to talk business for a while over beers. She couldn't remember much about him. Just that his hair was long-like George Harrison's in 1964, his hands were sweaty, and his whisper made her shiver.

"Oh hey! Come on in!"

"Thanks. Hey look, I'm sorry this couldn't wait to get these papers to you, but my wife decided to go on this family trip, so I gotta go see in-laws...tonight."

"Oh jeez, she really sprung that on you?"

"Yeah."

"Well Jake, I'm sure you'll pull through. Hey, are you driving the family to, uh-"

"Maryland."

"Are you driving the family to Maryland?"

"The wife and I decided to split the driving fifty-fifty. Why?"

Her father bit his lip, smiled sheepishly, and looked down at her.

"Hey, Sam, would you go watch TV in the other room for a sec while Jake and I talk business, here?"

"Sure," she cried cheerfully.

He smiled. Sam knew he loved her. She did leave, but she didn't watch TV. She wanted to know why her father smiled like she often smiled.

"You want a beer or two for the road?"

"Sure."

She watched Jake tilt his head a bit-he'd seen her-motioning for her to run before she got caught. Thanks to him, she took the cue, and her dad didn't catch her eavesdropping.

At that time in her life, everything was bright and big, but in a fun way. The hallway was longer, the lamps were bigger, and light stretched farther on the walls because of her size. It was a beautiful thing to watch Sam's face light up like those light bulbs.

The Co-worker Jake was a large, friendly man that she thought she could relate to. Jake with his wide smile, floppy, long hair, and overpowering words. Words that described fairies hidden in the lampshades of her world.

While her dad got beers from the refrigerator, Jake sat opposite of Sam on the couch.

"Why can't I see the fairies?"

"Oh look! Their they are!"

Sam looked as quickly as she could, trying to spot the little things, but they weren't their.

"They aren't their!"

"It takes a sharp eye to see them Sam. I suppose only I can," he said with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. He rolled his eyes and she laughed.

"I'll see them, just you wait!"

"Here we go Jake," her father came back into the living room and got in the middle of Sam and Jake.

Sam saw Jake's smile lessen. She stared at him, wondering why it faded.

He was a great story teller. He told happy stories, like fairies hiding under lampshades, and sad stories, like how his wife yelled at him too much and it made him sad. But then he'd say she-Sam-always made him happy. He told her these things while her father went to get a pen from his study to annotate the papers from work. Jake told her these things quickly, but with great emotion that made Sam want to cry because he looked like a lost puppy to her. She wanted to help the Co-worker Jake (w/ the Lost Puppy Face).

His face looked sad. His eyes were glistening, and the light from the lamps reflected off his eyes.

"I wish I had your eyes. Your pretty, lit up eyes. You're a very pretty girl, Sammy."

"You too. You're a nice person Jake. Your wife knows that. How couldn't she?"

"I wish she did…"

"Wish what," Sam's dad came back into the room.

"I wish a fairy-godmother could come through the window and put a pretty pink dress on Sam, here."

Sam was conflicted. She did not know why Jake lied. He lied often. In his stories, in his conversations, and in his smiles and frowns. He could turn a smile on and off like she could turn off a light. His smile was faint but sincere with her, but when her dad came back in, it got wide-like a clown's. It was very confusing.

All she said was, "Why do lights go out?"

Both men furrowed there eyebrows and stiffened. But they didn't answer Sam's question, instead they turned away and focused on the papers on the coffee table.

Sam drowned out what her dad and Jake were saying because she couldn't speak accountant. While they focused on numbers and figures, she focused on coloring a world filled with fairies, sunshine, and lamps.

Her dad had had more beers than Jake and he began to laugh too much. Soon numbers and figures morphed into "college days" and "the girlfriend they should've married". Jake had had only had one beer.

Sam's dad decided to get up to go check the time, and call his wife to find out when she would be back from work.

Sam stayed with Jake because he was looking sleepy, and happy, and she thought he might be in the mood to tell her more about the fairies in the lamp shades.

"Come 'ere," he smiled, but the smile looked sad, and hollow. Like he was in a trance.

She sat beside him, propped up against the armrest on the sofa.

He got closer to her.

"Can I kiss you?"

She remembered what her mom had told her to say to a boy if he asked her that question.

"You can kiss me on the hand."

He moved toward her. Toward her lips. She held up her hand, cupped, in an awkward way. She thought it would be harder for him to kiss her on the hand by the way she was holding it in front of her mouth.

_Why would he want to kiss me like that? _

He backed up, his hair in his face. It was golden in the fading sunlight. His hand looked warm and pink too, as it reached for her cheek, and caressed it.

He kissed her on the cheek, and then somewhere farther down on her chest.

He buried his face in her hair and breathed hot air onto her neck which made her stiffen.

Then he breathed into her ear, "Shush, babe. Shush, baby."

It was a whisper, but it hurt her ears and sent a shiver through her.

She couldn't move, and it scared her because she did not know why.

His hands were sweaty and he touched her shoulders and face, and she was confused. Very, very confused.

She felt small and helpless. She felt disconnected from him, or maybe he wasn't connected to her, it was like he didn't even see her anymore. He'd stopped calling her Sam and called her "babe". She didn't know why when seven was a perfectly good, adult age, thank you very much.

Her cat peered at her from under the coffee table, with a smile like the Cheshire Cat's, "Don't tell," she whispered.

"No, I won't tell anyone, Samantha, don't you worry."

He pulled back from her, and asked again, "Can I kiss you?"

She didn't say anything one way or the other and he did. His lips connected with hers, his tongue swamped her mouth. It was like a toothbrush on her teeth, or a snake with a mind of its own in her mouth. She had the horrifying thought that his tongue really was a snake, and if she let it stay there too long, it would slither down her throat.

She pushed him away, and out the snake came.

He looked at her with his Lost Puppy face again, and then with anger and annoyance mixed in. The Lost Puppy turned into a malnourished, snapping dog, and finally into an old dog with a self pitying look on his face. She didn't like him anymore. Sam looked back at the lamp on the opposite end of the sofa; didn't see any fairies.

" I don't see any fairies," she said without smiling.

He looked away from her, pursing his lips. He went to the other side of the sofa, and didn't speak to Sam for the rest of the evening.

Sam's dad came back into the room.

"Sam, your mom'll be back soon. Why don't you get ready for bed so she can tuck you in?"

"Okay. Dad?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

She shivered.

"Can I go take a bath?"

"Sure thing. Let me show Jake out and I'll be right up to fix it for you. Why don't you go ahead and pick out your PJ's?"

"Ok."

Over the years, she'd slept with a lot of guys, and a few girls. She always felt dirty afterwards. A lot of the boys told her she was perfect, and that washed away the dirty feeling for a while. And soon, that was all she used to stay clean, or get clean, or feel were gentle, but they were too angry at their parents to say something meaningful. They said she was "pretty" and "really nice for doing this for me", but they never really focused on her. And when words like "perfect" and "babe" and "gorgeous" didn't help, she tried something else, something new. It was at all the parties; it kept her numb and blissful. It was portable, and she didn't have to kiss anyone to get it...at least not very often. It was a substitute boyfriend named Acid and he gave her a whole new perspective on her favorite Beatles' songs. For a while he was the only fling she needed at parties. People who wanted to have sex at parties were referred to Sam.

Someone even told her, " You know what? You're more popular than Jesus. I mean you are _hot_\- people told me about you, and now I see _why_."

And after that, after being told her she was an amazing person because of fucking, and her stunning good-looks, she felt empty. She got high. She had sex. She took a shower. She had sex, got high, took a shower. The shower's got so long that her mom began timing her because the water bill was too high. And then nothing was enough. The showers couldn't wash off the stiffness, and the shivering, when she was touched, it couldn't wash off the self-loathing she began to feel.

Until one day she opened her locker and saw "WHORE" written in red lipstick on the door. At least it looked like lipstick; the difference was, whatever it was wouldn't come off.

She wrote some power-to-ya quote on a piece of paper and taped over the graffiti. She had gotten an F on a math test, forgotten to do her homework in two classes, and in English she had stammered on a read-aloud because someone mouthed "cock sucker". Of v course the teacher didn't see any of this, and when she saw the lipstick-slander in her locker, she decided to skipped the last class of the day to have a smoke behind the dumpster in school parking lot.

She stayed late after school and tried to get off. She tried, and tried, and just like the grime she couldn't wash off in the shower, the word would not come off the door. She rubbed and rubbed until her hands were sore and red, and her eyes were red from crying. She cried until she couldn't see. She'd assumed she was alone.

"Oh, miss. Why are you crying?"

"Sorry?"

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, um, it's nothing. Some kids just being mean...they wrote something bad on my locker and it won't come off."

"Really? Won't come off? Well, we'll see about that."

"Oh no, you don't have to do that, really, I've got it."

"Oh hush, hush. It's my job."

And she looked behind him and saw that it was.

_Of course you weren't alone. It was stupid of you to think you would be. It's not like janitors took the day off because you stayed late to clean your locker. _

"My name's Aaron, by the way."

The man had a kind, soft face with a large, grey handle bar mustache that nearly covered his kind smile.

"I'm Sam."

"Sam's a nice name."

He started taking a cloth to the red.

"It...it won't come off. I tried scrubbing it but...it won't come off."

"That's alright. We can always get you a new locker door if doesn't."

"O-okay."

"So, if you don't mind me asking, why would someone write something like this on your locker when you seem like such a nice girl?"

"I...I'm not sure."

"Well, nevermind. It doesn't matter because it's not true."

"You don't know me. How do you know it's not true?"

"I don't, but for your information, do you know who else was considered a whore?"

She smiled faintly, not used to hearing adults swear.

"No."

"Mary Magdalane. You know who she is?"

"She's somebody in the Bible, right?"

"Uhuh. She washed Jesus's feet with her hair, and she was at his feet when he died," he paused and rubbed at the lipstick, "You know who co-_governed_ the Byzantine with Justinian the Great? Theodora. Do you know how she met the Justinian-the _emperor_? She met him through her job as an extoic dancer. Now I'm not saying that being promiscuous is a good thing, because it's not, but...my point is…"

He scratched his head and muttered, "Now, where were you, Aaron?"

She laughed faintly and he did too at losing his place.

"All I'm saying is, you don't need to do those things to feel whole, or better about yourself. Now. You got homework?"

"Yes."

"Well then you go on home and do that, and I'll take care of this."

"Are you-are you sure?"

"Yes I am."

"Okay."

Sam took her bag and got to the parking lot, when she remembered she'd left her Chemistry book in her locker. She propped her bag in the doorway and ran back to get it. Aaron was gone. And so was the red lipstick. The problem was, she had been away from Aaron and her locker for about a minute. The locker was perfectly dry, there were no signs of any cleaning product, or soap, or lipstick being on the locker door at all. She ran back to the front of the school where the list of employees was posted for parents to see. There was no one named Aaron on the list. She went back to her locker and took out her chemistry book and walked out to the parking lot and noticed a She looked a green sticky note attached to the textbook:

"'_It is during our darkest moments we must concentrate to see the light.' -Aristotle _

'_Your big opportunity may be where you are right now.' -Napoleon Hill." _

_Something to brighten up your day. _

_-Charlie. _


End file.
